was crammed into the city, and DJ had the money to pay for the absolute best.
She followed Brad around another curving rock and stopped. The path ended at a large canvas tent decked out with all the luxury items one would expect on a fantasy safari: a teak desk, carved teak chairs, along with wicker ones in intricate patterns, a zebra rug.
And then there were all the modern accoutrements: desktop computer, laptop, iPad, phone system. She assumed there were concealed speakers, as well.
“The office,” Brad explained unnecessarily.
And beyond the tent there was an elephant. Life-size, and too realistic to be anything but the real thing, professionally taxidermied. Barrie felt a frisson of horror and anger at the sight of that magnificent creature, stuffed and displayed. It’s just not right.
But social outrage was going to get her nowhere here. She stifled her human response and followed Brad into the tent.
He crossed to a wet bar in the corner and poured rosy, icy drinks from a chilled glass pitcher.
She took the glass warily. There was no obvious smell of blood, so she sipped, and found she was drinking a virgin version of a Cosmo.
“Expecting something just a bit stronger?” a familiar voice said behind her. Barrie jumped; the voice sounded as close as if someone had leaned in to whisper into her ear. But when she turned, DJ was standing several yards away, observing her with a hint of amusement. Words like hypnotic, feral, mesmerizing, predatory ran through her mind in a jumble, and she found herself as intimidated as she had been the night before. The actor’s eyes were especially riveting—nearly black—and he never seemed to take those eyes off her.
Brad the assistant had disappeared, and Barrie was acutely aware that she was alone in a secluded, guarded manor with a volatile and possibly not entirely sane vampire who might well be out of the reach of all human law.
I am in such trouble, she thought. And then she got hold of herself.
“This is an amazing place,” she said, to break the spell.
“Do you know Africa?” he asked.
“I’ve heard of it,” she said dryly.
“It’s bigger,” DJ said. “You should go. The game alone...”
Barrie had no idea what to say to that. DJ walked the tent in a prowling circle that was more animal than human.
“So, Keeper,” he said, and his voice was so sibilant it could have been the voice of a snake. “You are sworn to protect all Others.”
“All Others who live by the Code,” she said, and was amazed at how steady her voice sounded. But suddenly she was not a starstruck thirteen-year-old meeting a legendary movie star. She was a Keeper, as responsible for that movie star as she was for a teenage street urchin. She felt the power of her ancestral duty surge through her veins, and she faced DJ as an equal. She thanked her father in her heart.
“Ah, the Code,” DJ said with irony. “How would we live without it?” He looked around them and then spread his hands theatrically. “Let’s stroll, shall we?”
Barrie nodded and followed him into the jungle.
As DJ walked her through the trails of the African Room, Barrie understood what a feat of design the...set? Diorama? Terrarium?...actually was. She forgot that they were in an enclosed, designed space, because the sights and sounds and smells were so perfectly orchestrated to create the illusion of an African veldt. She gasped as they came across a perfectly poised lion.
“It’s beautiful,” she told the actor.
“It was delicious, too,” he said. She looked at him, aghast, and he gave her a catlike smile. “Of course I killed it. I killed everything here. Not a single part goes to waste, as you see.”
She had to force down her feelings of revulsion and focus herself to remember why she was there, but when she spoke it was with amazing calm.
“I came today because I’m investigating what I believe is a dual murder. And I think it’s intimately connected with the death of Johnny Love and whatever happened on the set of Otherworld.”
It was absolutely impossible to read the look on the actor’s face. “You’re talking about Solly, obviously. Are you saying he was offed because of the movie? Fifteen years later?” He sounded incredulous, skeptical and bored all in the same breath.
Barrie ignored his tone and kept on point. “I think it’s a strong possibility.”
DJ stopped on the path and looked at her. “This requires a drink.” He headed toward the hollow tree with the bar. After